Friday, March 4, 2016

After having their faces plastered across the news
during a high-profile case, FBI Special Agents Ty Grady and Zane Garrett have
become more useful to the Bureau posing for photo ops than working undercover.
Just as Zane is beginning to consider retirement a viable option, Ty receives a
distress call from a friend, leading them to a city rife with echoes from the
past.

New Orleans wears its history on its streets, and it’s the
one place Ty’s face could get him killed. Surrounded by trouble as soon as they
land, Ty and Zane are swiftly confronted with a past from which Ty can’t
hide—one with a surprising connection to Zane’s.

As threats close in from all directions, both men must come
to terms with the lives they’ve led and the lies they’ve told. They soon discover
that not all their secrets are out yet, and nothing lasts forever.

Special agents Ty Grady and Zane Garrett have been
through a lot over the last decade, walked different paths until they eventually
crossed. But Zane is about to find out that their paths actually crossed years
before they became partners in the FBI, as well as some closely guarded secrets
his lover would rather he not know.

Ty Grady may be a certifiable son of a bitch, but is loyal
to a fault. So when his best friend and former team member, Nick O’Flaherty,
calls that he and Doc are in trouble, of course Ty drops everything and rushes
to the last place on earth he ever wanted to be again… New Orleans. Years ago
when Ty was still on the force, he did an undercover stint in NOLA and didn’t
leave on the best of terms. The city is all around a bad omen for Ty and his
Sidewinder team mates, and several bad decisions are about to come back to try
and kill them.

Zane is completely, totally, one hundred and ten percent in
love with his partner. Of course the feelings are reciprocated, but Ty is a
master manipulator that has redefined the definition of the words truth and
lies. Both men are about to learn exactly how far they can be pushed before
they break, how far they are willing to go for one another, and all I can tell
you is… it is not pretty. Roux could have easily titled this series Murphy’s
Law, because whatever can go wrong most definitely will if it involves Ty and
Zane.

Lord but this book almost gave me a damn heartattack! There
was a little bit of grown man angst that had me wanting to pull Zane through my
iPod and smack him around a little, but thankfully, he pulled his head out of
the nether regions eventually. That being said, I could completely understand
why he was livid with Ty. It is a thin line between a moral obligation to the
man you profess to love, the man you want to spend the rest of your life with,
and being sworn to secrecy by your boss. And even though at the end of the day
Ty and Zane are smart enough to figure out what is important and fight for it,
I don’t think all the secrets have truly been shared.

Narrated by JF Harding and I love that I am already
associating his voice to these characters after just one book. It read more
like a continuation for me between Harding’s attention to details with the
tones and nuances he has given the guys, and bringing them smoothly over to
this story, and the story picking back up right where Stars & Stripes left
off. Harding captured every emotion that poured of Roux’s words in this story.
There were some seriously emotional and devastating aspects to this book and I
could almost feel Ty and Zane’s pain when they spoke.

This book will put you through the ringer. It’s emotional
and heavy, but it’s passionate and real as well. I was literally sitting on the
edge of my seat at work while listening. There were a couple of times I was so
engrossed that I sat with my fingers perched over the keyboard, staring blindly
at the monitor because all I could concentrate on was Ty and Zane. I highly recommend
this book/series if you enjoy highly detailed stories where the world and the
characters are so real while you listen, that you not only become invested, you
are embedded in their fictional lives, anxiously awaiting the next installment.

In case you couldn't tell by all my glowing remarks, 5 stars!

Excerpt...

Zane Garrett glanced up in time to see Alston toss a balled up scrap of paper across the pod of desks where their team of six sat. Ty Grady threw up his arms, signaling a touchdown as the paper skidded across his desk and into his lap.

“Garrett, Grady, in my office,” McCoy called from his door. He disappeared inside.

“What’d you guys do now?” Alston asked.

Zane rolled his eyes. “Wasn’t me.”

“This time,” Clancy chimed in.

“I hope it was me,” Ty said with relish. He stood and buttoned his suit, leaving a half-finished firearms discharge form open on his computer.

“Sometimes I wonder how far you’d go to get out of paperwork,” Alston said.

“Watch old episodes of Pinky and the Brain and you might get close,” Zane muttered, drawing snorts of laughter from their other two teammates.

“Before everything went digital, I had the Bureau docs convinced I was allergic to paper pulp,” Ty told them, dead serious. His hazel eyes were shining. “It was beautiful.”

“You’re allergic to everything else,” Zane said as he pushed out of his chair. “Come on. You know what he did to us the last time we made him wait.”

“Salon appointments,” Lassiter mused.

“PR lectures,” Alston said.

“Enforced vacation?” Clancy added.

“Christ, I don’t know which of those is worse,” Zane said. It was all part and parcel of being Ty Grady’s partner. And, Zane had to be honest, some of it was his own fault too.

Ty pointed around at each of his teammates, playfully threatening them as he trailed after Zane. He knocked on the doorjamb, peering into the Special Agent in Charge’s office. McCoy looked up from his computer screen and smirked.

A cold chill ran through Zane’s body. “Oh hell.”

“What now?” Ty blurted. They both knew that the look on McCoy’s face was a harbinger of doom.

McCoy shook his head and motioned for them to come in and close the door. Once Ty had pushed it shut, McCoy waved two sheets of paper at them. “Several weeks ago, we had a request put in. An unusual one, but it’s a reasonable step toward keeping our noses clean in the press.”

“Is this more PR bullshit?” Ty asked.

“It’s not bullshit,” McCoy had the gall to say with a straight face.

Zane sat with a deep sigh. “You’ve still got me giving a community lecture once a month as it is. The last one? The deputy mayor asked me if I’d speak to the Chamber of Commerce. How am I supposed to be a discreet, undercover criminal investigator when everyone knows who I am?”

“That’s a very good point,” Ty said.

“That’s one of the things I need to speak to you both about. Individually. Later,” McCoy added with a more somber cast to his face. “But for now we’ll deal with this one—very reasonable—request.”

“Which is?” Ty asked.

“There’s a fundraising calendar being put together by a local first responder organization.”

Ty stood up, holding his hand out toward McCoy as if to ward off evil. “Hell no!”

Zane blinked. “A calendar?”

McCoy nodded. “They’re using people from state, federal, and municipal organizations, and all proceeds are going to a fund set up to aid first responders injured in the line of duty.”

“Admirable,” Zane said.

“You’ve both been requested as . . . models,” McCoy managed to say without cracking a smile.

Zane looked from his partner back to McCoy. “You’re joking.” Ty was shaking his head, thumbing through numbers on the cell phone in his hand. Zane hadn’t even seen him pull it out.

“I never joke,” McCoy said with a hint of mischief. He looked to Ty. “If you’re intending to call Richard Burns to get you out of this, I won’t have it. The Bureau needs this and you’re the ones they want.”

Ty narrowed his eyes at McCoy, then turned his phone off and curled his lip at Zane. There was also a hint of apprehension in his expression, but he hid it quickly.

“We’ve been assured the photographs will be tastefully done,” McCoy said.

“Fine,” Zane said, pointing at Ty. “Send him. But why me?”

Ty shook his head and gestured toward Zane while raising one eyebrow at McCoy. “I think the real question is: Why do they need me when they have such a fine specimen right here?” he said, sounding like a used car salesman trying to sell a Pinto.

McCoy smiled, though he looked as if he was trying not to. “Am I to assume the two of you will agree to representing the Bureau in this?”

“I think ‘agree’ is too strong a term,” Zane said. “This is a bad idea. Remember when we were on TV?”

“Yes, Grady got fan mail for a month.”

“I did?”

“We burned it, as you should all evil things,” McCoy answered.

From Ty’s expression, he was trying to figure out if McCoy was being facetious or serious.

Zane laughed and wiped his hand over his face.

“I’m not going to force you, Garrett. But I am going to force Grady because he owes me.”

“What?” Ty shouted.

McCoy ignored him. “But I need an answer from you right now.”

Zane was still laughing over the absurdity of the idea as he glanced at Ty, weighing his options and wondering just what the punishment would be if he bowed out. Because there would be retribution from his partner. For sure. Of course, if he went along of his own free will, there might be a reward involved. A hot, naked, angry reward. Not that McCoy needed to know anything about that.

To read the excerpt in its entirety or to find out more about this Author, and series, head over to Riptide Publishing!

Abigail Roux was born and raised in North Carolina. A past volleyball star who specializes in sarcasm and painful historical accuracy, she currently spends her time coaching high school volleyball and investigating the mysteries of single motherhood. Any spare time is spent living and dying with every Atlanta Braves and Carolina Panthers game of the year.

Abigail has a daughter, Little Roux, who is the light of her life, a boxer, four rescued cats who play an ongoing live-action variation of Call of Duty throughout the house, a certifiable extended family down the road, and a cast of thousands in her head.

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